


Mistakes Were Made

by Hollyflash



Series: DannyMay 2017 [4]
Category: Danny Phantom, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: DannyMay 2017, Dash is really good at rolling dice, Disclaimer: the author loves D&D with all their heart and this is just for fun, Gen, Kwan's just happy to be there, Nobody in this fic knows how to play D&D, Paulina's looking out for her friends, Star kind of does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 12:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13659168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollyflash/pseuds/Hollyflash
Summary: The night went from bad to worse the second the words "I roll to seduce the elf king," came from Dash's mouth.





	Mistakes Were Made

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Danny would get immunity from Dash for as long as this lasted, Star would make sure he got an A in physics, and once they had finished he’d get two free dates with whatever member of the cheerleading team he chose. The A-list had power, and as long as they needed Tucker, they were happy to use it for whatever he wanted.

But this? Tucker hadn’t signed up for  _this._

“I roll to seduce the elf king,” Dash said, and rolled his twenty-sided die as Tucker watched in horror.

.-. 

It had started off simple enough.

He’d found a note in his locker asking that he meet some mystery person behind the school during lunch. Learning that it had come from Dash, Kwan, Star, and Paulina had been slightly terrifying, but he’d worked past it.

“You like nerd stuff, right?” Paulina had said, and like an idiot, he’d said yes.

The four of them had fallen in love with some story about Dungeons and Dragons and wanted to play. However, they needed someone to run the game for them. Kwan thought Tucker would be easier to bribe than Mikey to keep quiet about it.

Tucker had resented that, as true as it was. He’d added in Dash having to avoid Danny before being swayed, and agreed that the four could meet him in his attic on Saturday. Tucker had no experience with tapletop RPG games, so Paulina had given him a guide on how to run a game of Dungeons and Dragons, and an almost threatening bit of advice. “You’ll be our Dungeon Master, and a good Dungeon Master always says yes. Don’t you agree?”

Confused and slightly terrified, Tucker pretended he did. That had been his first mistake.

His second was allowing them all to design their own characters.

Paulina had brought a professionally done drawing of her character, which was just her in a medieval-fantasy-esque dress. “Her name is Princess Melody Treble, she’s a lawful neutral high elf noble and wizard.”

Tucker had stared at her. “She’s not a bard?”

“Of course not!” Paulina had looked appalled, “You can’t judge people based on their names!”

Really, that should have been Tucker’s first clue that this would end badly.

Star had written a fifteen-page backstory because, well, that’s what Star did. “This is Sympathy Hellforge, a tiefling rouge with an urchin background who is lawful neutral.” Tucker had nodded and turned to get Kwan’s character, but Star was faster. She’d flipped open the first page of her backstory and cleared her throat. “Sympathy and her twin sister, Empathy, were orphans by age nine…”

Half an hour and a box of tissues later- Kwan had been  _deeply_  moved by the tale of the two fictional siblings- they were finally ready to move on to the next character.

“This is Timothy Green,” Kwan had said, and held up his tear-stained stick figure drawing. “He’s a neutral good gnome cleric of Pan with the entertainer background who likes being picked up and warm hugs. He used to be a dad.” He’d turned to Dash, “Who’re you playing?”

Dash, who’d suddenly looked embarrassed, gave Tucker his character sheet.

The first thing Tucker had noticed was that every single one of the character’s stats were 19. Secondly, was that Dash was playing a chaotic good human fighter with the folk hero background- a bit cliché. But the third, and arguably worst thing, was the name.

“Your character’s name is Dan Phanta.” Tucker had stared at him, “You’re playing as Danny Phantom, and all your ability scores are as high as they possibly can be.”

“I’m really good at rolling dice,” Dash said.

Tucker opened his mouth to inform Dash that  _that’s called cheating,_  but was stopped when Paulina cleared her throat.

“Remember what I told you about being a good Dungeon Master?” she said.

Unsure whether he should be more terrified by the name  _Dungeon Master_ or Paulina’s possible wrath if he didn’t perform it correctly, Tucker only nodded.

So really, there’d been a lot of mistakes on his part from the start. Tucker was perfectly fine with admitting that. But this? This wasn’t fair.

He’d sent them off on a quest to rescue a princess, since that seemed ‘fantasy’ enough. “You enter a hall, and sitting in the middle on this fancy throne is a gaudy-looking elf man-”

Dash smashed his hand on the table and threw a twenty-sided die on the table. “I roll to seduce the elf king!”

As Kwan nearly fell off his chair from laughing- and Tucker from pure shock- he faintly registered both Dash’s shout of ‘natural twenty!’ and Paulina’s terrifying, judgmental glare.

Tucker adjusted his glasses and looked over his notes. “Uh, he is… charmed? Yeah, he’s charmed by you. And thoroughly seduced.”

Paulina’s glare relaxed as Dash pumped his fist in the air.

“Nice,” Star said, “I’m going to say to him ‘Excuse me Sir, but we’re looking for a young woman who was taken from her home by orcs. Could you help us?’”

Tucker stared at his plans, and the battle he’d set up, and wondered how Danny and Sam were spending their evening.

.-.

As the horrible, horrible game continued, Tucker was almost positive that he’d angered a ghost. Maybe last time he’d gone with Danny to visit Dora he’d offended one of her subjects. Maybe the gem of fantasy was actually a ghost with a grudge. Either way, he had to have upset something supernatural for this to still be happening.

“So, the four of you have found a map,” he said, any trace of enthusiasm deader than his best friend. “And you feel a pull towards the town with a dagger stabbed into it, but it’s not necessary. Aside from the river, it’s the only thing on the map-”

“I vote we check out the river,” Star said.

“So do I,” Paulina said, staring Tucker down. “But before we do, Melody’s also going to grab the dagger. It was stabbed into the map, it has to be good for something, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Tucker had  _not_  planned for this, and now stared blankly at his notes.

Paulina tapped her nails on the table. “What  _does_  it do?”

“It… gives you plus one on survival checks?” Tucker said as he tried and failed to pretend he knew what he was doing.

“While they’re doing that,” Dash said, “Kwan and I are going to loot the bodies of those orcs we killed for better armor.”

“Wait,” Tucker started to say, “they’re not wearing any-”

“I rolled a nineteen on armor finding.”

“Is this a wisdom or intelligence roll?” Kwan asked, and Star started to give Tucker an annoyed look.

“Wisdom,” Dash said, “so seventeen for you.”

Star crossed her arms, “When are we heading to the river?”

Distantly, Tucker heard his phone ring. That settled it; there was definitely a ghost out there who hated him.

.-.

“You arrive at the river,” Tucker said, almost completely monotone, “it looks deadly.”

“How deadly?” Kwan asked.

“Very.”

“I’m going to make a survival check to see if we can cross it,” Paulina said, and rolled her die. “…That’s a nine.” She gave Tucker a pleading look. Star narrowed her eyes.

Tucker stopped slouching a little bit. A nine was… a fail, wasn’t it? So he didn’t have to get them across the river? “With a nine, you can see that the river is super deadly, and you want to go to the town.” Dash and Kwan were whispering to each other. Tucker ignored that.

“I’m going to persuade her to stay,” Star rolled her dice, “that’s a fourteen, so I tell her ‘we’ll be fine, it’s not that bad.’ And I’m going to take a running start and leap across it.”

Tucker stared at her. “What?”

“Before she does,” Kwan said, “I’m going to tie my rope around her waist and to one of the trees behind us. And I’m going to tie Dash’s rope to that  _and_  the tree. And then I’m going to hold them there!”

Tucker was still staring. “Why?”

“And then I’m going to leap across too,” Dash said, giving Kwan a fistbump while Star nodded approvingly. Before Tucker could say anything, he’d rolled his die and another natural twenty stared up at them.

Tucker stopped functioning. He had the mental image of an error screen and just stopped functioning. He had no idea what anyone else rolled; at this point, it didn’t matter.

“Sure,” he said, “yeah, sure- you leap across the river, and guess what? You go so far and so fast that you just break the sound-”

Tucker’s window shattered and Danny Phantom slid across the table, taking character sheets and dice off the other end with him.

“Hi, Tuck,” he said, weakly waving a hand as he pulled a piece of paper off his face, “nice to see you, could really use your help- why is almost my name on this piece of paper?”

“Ghost boy!” Paulina shouted, and Danny scrambled to his feet.

“Hello-” he cleared his throat and lowered his voice, “hello, citizens! I did not mean to interrupt… whatever this is.” He motioned to Dash’s character sheet. Danny lost his superhero voice for a moment, “What is this, anyway?”

“Dungeons and Dragons, Phantom!” Kwan said excitedly, shaking the shoulder of Dash, who looked like he was experiencing an error message of his own. “Do you want to play with us?”

Still holding Dash’s character sheet, Danny looked over at Tucker in confusion.

“I regret everything, dude,” Tucker said,  _“everything.”_

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the DannyMay 2017 prompt Mistakes/Regret and originally posted on May 30 due to a bad internet connection. The campaign they're playing is my own, and considering that the rogue has never once used sneak attack of her own accord, the barbarian doesn't understand rage, the bard constantly forgets which die to roll, and the sorcerer ended up creating an entire country with her backstory, my players aren't much better than these nerds. I'm definitely a better DM, though, considering that unlike Tucker I actually know the rules.
> 
> It's still great, though. I love D&D. Please talk to me about it.
> 
> Also, the 'story about D&D' referenced at the beginning is The Adventure Zone. It's an absolutely amazing podcast, and I highly recommend it!


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